


what's a good time like you doing in a place like this?

by sarah_x



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: M/M, the movie's not even out yet ashfddshfahgfd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 14:08:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7621402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarah_x/pseuds/sarah_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - Rick and Floyd have met before. </p><p>(Unbeat'd and done at like 12 oclock at night so pls tell me in the comments if there are spelling mistakes and errors.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	what's a good time like you doing in a place like this?

**Author's Note:**

> Listen the movie's not even out yet so if this is horribly ooc don't judge me ok I'm impulsive and I needed to write something so here we go. I pulled Flag's origin out of my ass basically, I chose San Antonio because it's a very military-orientated city and Flag has a Southern accent (ish?) in the trailers so....

Waller had told him as plainly as a newscaster reading off a teleprompter, “General Flag Sr. was killed in action yesterday during a raid on enemy personnel. You will be given a week of compassionate leave to attend his funeral in San Antonio and then we will continue with the mission.”

Rick braced himself against the table in the situation room, hands wrapping tightly around the polished wood. There was a flicker of sympathy in Waller’s eyes but when Rick addressed her, it was gone as soon as it had arrived, “Right. Thank you for telling me.”

He nodded at her numbly, turned to march from the room but was stopped with one hand on the doorknob by Waller’s surprisingly gentle voice, “I’m sorry, Flag. If it’s any consolation, your father died a hero.”

The door thudded shut behind him.

***

San Antonio was his hometown, even if Rick felt weird knowing it as such. Growing up, he had lived the military brat lifestyle, bouncing around from post to post with his parents. Going wherever his father’s job took them. Even after his mom had died after a recurrent bout of cancer and was buried in the busy Texan city, Rick had solemnly packed his shit after the funeral and kept moving. The last time he’d been back to the city was to bury his mom. Now he was back. Same city, different parent.

The funeral blurred past him. It was big and elaborate and his dad would have detested it if he’d been there to see it. The coffin was carried out, people who hardly knew his father squeezed out a few tears, they folded the American flag covering his dad’s coffin and handed it to him with a sympathetic salute. All Rick could do was stare down at the red, white and blue. His military buddies used to say he bled those colours.

Next came the three volley salute. Three blanks fired into the air one after another.

As quickly as it began, it was over. People were getting into their cars to avoid the oncoming rain, some tried to talk to Rick and he’s sure he held some kind of loose conversation with them for a while before dismissing himself.

He needed to be alone for a while.

He needed a goddamn drink.

After walking a couple of blocks in the rain, Rick ducked into a dive bar. It was the kind he found himself in a lot as a teenager, complete with the topless neon lady illuminating the bar. Back then it had been to spite his dad. There wasn’t much room for rebellion when his father had picked up most of his parenting techniques from drill instructors. It still hadn’t stopped him from coming to sleazy bars like this and picking up all kinds of strangers. Men, women, it hadn’t really mattered back then. Whoever could get him off. Rick vividly remembered his dad driving six miles to a grocery store and then kicking him out of the car half way home and telling him to walk the rest of the way as a result of his behaviour. Not like it had stopped him. There was a lot of “tough love” in his childhood. It had led to a complicated, distant relationship with his father, especially after his mom died. He’d lost the one person willing to take his side against his dad. All his friends and his dad’s friends tried to stay out of it, not because it was a family matter but because they were scared of Richard Flag Sr.

Settling into a bar stool, Flag loosened his tie and shoved it into his pocket, ordering a shot of tequila and then a beer. It was a nice environment, for now at least. It’d probably get busier as the night picked up but for now the bar was nothing more than a quiet bustle, the clang of glasses and the shuffle of fabric rubbing against the bar.

Rick pressed the bottle of beer against his forehead, trying to block out the sharp red, white and blue of the flag and the gunshots ringing in his ears. He didn’t know why this was eating him up so much. He’d hadn’t been that close to his father, not for a decade at least, and he’d seen plenty worse shit in the field. Lost friends and really cried for them, spent hours pressed against a bathroom wall with the door locked just throwing up over and over. Then he’d gotten over it, as he always had and would always have to, and didn’t really dwell on it again. This though…it was a lot.

Rick bit his lip. He was a grown ass man, he wasn’t about to fucking cry in a bar full of people.

“Let me guess, you didn’t get the job?”

Rick jerked the bottle away from his head and looked up to see a stranger settle down in a stool beside him.

The guy didn’t look at Rick until after he ordered, which was a shot of vodka before he decided to pay for the whole bottle. Rick noticed the heavy smell of gunpowder first and didn’t have to see the holsters straining against cargo pants and a leather jacket to know the guy is packing. “Either you screwed your interview, or you got left at the altar, so which is it, pretty boy?”

The stranger finally looked at him with a smirk plastered across his face. Part of Rick was pissed off, another part intrigued. “Neither. You a cop or something?”

The guy laughed, loud and long as if Rick had said something genuinely hilarious then turned back to him with the same smile on his face, “Not quite, soldier. Try again.”

“You military?”

“Something like that. You?”

“Yeah. Worked my way up to Major.”

The smile on the stranger’s face became less of a condescending smirk and more of a devious grin, “Well that begs the question, what’s a good time like you doing in a place like this?”

Rick couldn’t help but be shocked by the come on. It didn’t stop a small smile and faint blush spreading across his face, “You move fast.”

“So I’ve been told.” The man said, swigging down his second shot.

They were both smiling now and laughing awkwardly but somehow not, whether it was the alcohol taking away Rick’s sensibilities or the painful swell of grief in his chest that always led to some kind of self-destructive behaviour, Rick felt comfortable enough around this man to introduce himself. He stretched his hand, “Rick Flag.”

The man took his hand and shook it. “Deadshot,” Flag certainly wasn’t expecting that. “But my friends call me Floyd.”

Floyd sounded sketchy, for sure, but it only drew Rick to him more. He felt himself reverting back to his stupid seventeen year old self again. He tried to avoid staring at Floyd’s lips. “Am I a friend?”

A hand came to rest on his thigh and that was enough to electrify his whole body, sending nervous energy spiralling through his bones. Jesus, it had been a while. “I don’t know, man. Do you want to be?”

Rick caught a glimpse of a sown patch on the arm of Floyd’s jacket. The American flag. Red, white and blue.

Rick jerked away suddenly and Floyd frowned at him. What the hell was he doing? His father had just died, the level of disrespect….He had to get out. He threw a quick apology to Floyd and abruptly pushed the hand off of him, storming towards the door in a panic.

*

He was seven again, and tennis champion Rita Anderson had moved into the town their family was based at back then. Rick’s dad looked up from the newspaper article he was reading on her and said, “This is the reason our country is going to hell, son. People like her…they ain’t normal.”

Rick could see his mom over his dad’s shoulder sticking her tongue out at him behind his dad’s back, and Rick laughed. “It’s not funny, Rick. She doesn’t like boys, she likes _girls_ and that isn’t normal. It’s downright disgusting, if you ask me.”

Rick’s mom rolled her eyes and continued to fold laundry. “I like girls.” Rick said innocently and it was true, Amy Black had been his best friend at that school.

“Damn straight.”

His mom knocked into his dad’s head with the washing basket, purposefully Rick would realize when he was older, cooing a sarcastic, “Sorry, dear.” As she passed him.

*

The rain was nice. It was cold and refreshing. Rick heard the rumble of thunder on the horizon and it helped block out the memories, and the grief, and the anger at the grief because his father had truly been a terrible man, but he’d also been a good father and Rick didn’t know how to balance the two.

The rain hid his tears as Floyd stepped onto the street behind. “Hey, man…” The bravado from earlier was gone. Floyd was awkward in the downpour, hands in his jacket pockets. “I didn’t mean to come on that strongly and freak you out or whatever. I’m not usually like that it’s just been…a rough couple of weeks.”

“Tell me about it.” Rick sighed.

Floyd made as if to walk up to Rick, then walked past him, towards a motorcycle docked in the street. Floyd offered him the helmet without saying a word. He didn’t have to, Rick knew what he was insinuating, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Rick said.

“Probably not,” Floyd admitted, the smile returning. “But in my life of work, you can’t afford to miss opportunities. Especially not opportunities as hot as you are.”

Rick ignored the compliment, “And what exactly is your line of work?”

Floyd placed the helmet back on the motorcycle and started to meander towards Rick. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

Floyd was entering his space now. Rick backed up at first and Floyd let him, taking a step back in return, but his eyes stayed on Rick, watching him in a way that could only be described as a cat watching a mouse. There was something dangerous there, Rick had picked up on it almost instantly when Floyd had first joined him at the bar but Rick realized he didn’t care. In that moment, he couldn’t have given less of a shit about Waller or missions or his father.

Rick crossed the distance between them and kissed Floyd. The rain and the kiss seemed to work as a tag team to send shiver after shiver through Rick’s body. Rick clutched tighter to Floyd’s jacket as he kissed him but Floyd gently tugged his hands away. He pulled back and Rick was disappointed that the moment had ended, and a little pissed off, until he felt something delicate slip into one of his palms. A piece of paper. He shielded it from the rain and read off a series of digits, a phone number.

Floyd was already walking away, back to his motorcycle. “Call me,” He threw over his shoulder. “Too much of a good thing, you know the rest.”

“I won’t be in town for much longer.” Rick yelled over the rev of the engine.

“Then don’t wait too long.”


End file.
